


War Torn Children Make Easy Prey

by Spidernancy



Series: Bad Endings for Humanity [2]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Body Horror, Crossover, Gen, I'm sorry..., Stealth Crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-09
Updated: 2013-11-09
Packaged: 2017-12-31 23:03:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1037435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spidernancy/pseuds/Spidernancy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mikasa gets a second chance at a simple life with her parents, with the Yeagers, and not a Titan in sight. </p>
<p>And instantly regrets her weak heart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	War Torn Children Make Easy Prey

Mikasa sits under a tree with thick, bundled foliage like a dollop of whipped cream, perfectly placid. When the wind blows past her the perfume of flowers from her mother’s vibrant garden draw her focus. Her eyes drift shut and she soaks in the scents. There is more in common with candies than plants, she feels, sniffing harder. And she is right. There, braided into raspberry and lemon, is a hint of chocolate. Rose is an undercurrent, as is hibiscus. The pink carnations smell like strawberry mousse. 

When Eren sits next to her it is with a graceless thud. He lets his head hit the tree behind him, and breathes in just as deeply as Mikasa.

“Eren.”

“Hmm?” Her eyes are open and fixated on him. She puts two fingers on his cheek, and he wrinkles his nose and ducks away from the touch. “When will you stop doing that?”

“When I’m sure.” She pokes him again and he grumbles, jabbing her cheek in kind. Unlike him she doesn’t fuss at the touch.

“Don’t be stupid. You keep coming back, don’t you?”

Mikasa’s lips are tight as she assures him that she’s teasing, but he seems to know and coils his arms around her, the fabric of his shirt catching on the bark here and there, as they are still cozied up to the tree. They don’t hug so often anymore. Even as children the outward affection was rare, the pair of them hard-bitten and all too friendly with death before they reached ten. When Mikasa returns the hug her heart pounds, and she takes the opportunity to warm her nose in his hair. 

“You don’t ever have to go back there,” he whispers into her ear. His voice is tight and frightful. “We want you to stay.”

It isn’t enough. Mikasa clutches him even more tightly so that he has to fall off the perch of his knees and let himself come near to draped over her lap. He squirms but does not protest. “But are you happy? Eren?”

“I’d be a lot happier if you’d stop going back.” He pushes out of her grip, frowning, and takes a hold of her arm. The sleeve is bunched around the elbow to unveil a twisting ivory line, raised and craggy around the edges. A souvenir from the Corps. “I don’t like these scars.”

“They’re dead without me.”

“You’re dead with them,” Eren counters.

Mikasa could protest that her death was irrelevant, but in this place it wasn’t fair to say so. She had hesitated to die even when she thought Eren was lost forever in Trost and with him her purpose for living. What little else she had to her name would fit in a thimble. Here, there was enough to flood and wash her away, and there were hearts to break if she left them behind.

The bell rings. Eren snaps upright. “Hey, let’s forget it now. She made your favourite.”

Mikasa’s eyes flash, and they are upright and racing towards the house. Her heart still jumps when she looks at it, every whorl in the wooden slats identical, every sprig of grass around the base, the line of trees behind just the way she remembers.

They pile inside. Carla and Grisha are at one end of the table and Eren plummets into his mother’s arms, and Hannes chuckles and drops down into his own seat, already drinking the wine that’s been set out. Mikasa only has eyes for her father, who ruffles her hair and kisses her forehead as he leads her to the table, and for her mother, who smiles so brightly Mikasa’s heart could stop as she approaches with a pot.

Eren hadn’t been lying. The soup is simple, but it is her favourite. Even better than she remembers it, if she was judging by the steam rolling past her nose. There are other treats laid out on the table, pastries and pastas and delicacies unlike any she has had the chance to taste, but it is the soup that does her in. Mikasa wipes at her watering eyes.

“Oh, darling.” Her mother sets down the soup and steals her away from her father to shower her with kisses. “You don’t have to be sad. No tears for my girl tonight.”

“It’s just too good to be true,” Mikasa blurts.

“Well it is,” Eren insists. “Sit down already, I’m starving.”

Her mother shushes him. “Come now, we can’t have this. Should I have asked Armin over sooner?”

“Armin?”

“Yes, your friend? It was going to be a surprise. He’s bringing you gifts tonight, he’s back from his trip to the ocean.” Her mother pats her shoulder. “He’s got sea shells in every colour, so you can pick whichever you like best. I’m going to make you a necklace from it, darling, so you can have the sea with you always.”

“If Armin’s here, then what about the rest? His grandfather?” Mikasa emerges from her mother’s grasp, though her arm stays tight around her shoulder. She doesn’t want to leave that warmth for too long. “The 104th? Sasha, and Jean? Marco? Is everyone here? They’re all alive?”

“Everyone.” Carla nods. 

Mikasa blinks at her. She turns to Eren, who nods so hard his head might fall off and positively radiates with glee. “They’re all alive. There’s nothing to fear here, Mikasa. No walls, no Titans.”

“You can visit them all tomorrow, if you like,” her mother offers. “But first...”

Her answer rips out of her before her mother can finish, or summon the little box she had offered Mikasa the night before. “Yes! I want to! I want to stay. I’ve missed you so much. All of you.” 

Her mother smiles wide and hugs her again, and her father joins in from behind. She’s enveloped like they used to do to her when she was small. Mikasa cries a little and decides that she does not feel shame for it. This was her family and she could not hide herself from them any better at fifteen than she could at nine. She wasn’t so hard-bitten after all.

“Hannes, could you fetch it for me?” her mother requests. He obeys. Mikasa takes her seat at the table and smiles gratefully as he sets down the gift, wrapped in satin violet ribbons. Mikasa peels them off and folds them to the side with great care. No use in wasting such pretty things.

“You said it won’t hurt.”

“Not a bit,” her mother assures. She squeezes her shoulder and takes a seat next to her. “Would you like me to thread the needle?”

“No, I can do it.” Mikasa picks out the needle and coerces the thread through. She takes out the first button. The rim glints in the lamplights, a golden streak on the jet black base. She could have picked a different colour, but the rest of them had black too and Mikasa doesn’t want to set herself apart. “I’m not sure…”

“Here,” her mother takes the button and holds it to her left eye. “I’ll hold it.”

She is right, Mikasa finds as she pushes the needle through the first hole. It doesn’t hurt. It’s awkward, but it doesn’t hurt. Even if it did, she already knows what pain is and she’s sure should could have handled it. 

The strangest part of it all is that she can still see, clear as day, even if the rims of the buttons circle her vision like the frames of glasses. Once both buttons are secure she holds the string out taut and her mother obligingly snips the excess off. Everyone is grinning at her and unmoving. For some reason her mother’s smile looks just a bit too broad for her face as she claps her hands ecstatically, and then throws them far and wide like a scarecrow pinned to its cross.

Mikasa has a moment, just a sliver of a second, to realize that she already knows what’s coming.

So she doesn’t scream when her father and Eren and the rest erupt, splitting around the edges as molded stuffing and writhing mealworms spill out of what was once skin, and now looks as rough and lumpy as burlap, the smiles and button eyes still stitched onto their faces. She only sobs as the wood of the house unravels all around them, twisting, the world outside turned a blank and listless white as the wood thins and knits itself into cobwebs, and her mother is growing, her skin cracking like plaster, limbs and ribs elongating and dwindled down to emaciated parodies of human anatomy. 

The tears burn around where the buttons had been threaded into her eyes, salt searing the flesh. The pain sets in with a roar, the spell broken for good, and Mikasa collapses shrieking and clutching her face in blind agony. The world is washed away in an endless black wave.

Her mother’s voice soars above all. “My my, and here I thought your being older would make it so much _harder._ ”

~*~

“Hey, Mikasa!” Eren ducks into her room and frowns when he finds that it, too, is empty. He grumbles to himself. “Where on earth are you hiding?”

Armin is behind him shortly, panting and out of breath. “Oh! You’re already here? She’s not there, is she?”

“No,” Eren says, stomping in and looking around. “Her bed is still made. Did she even come in here to sleep last night?”

“You don’t think…her and Jean…”

Eren stiffens at that. “Her and Jean _what?_ ”

Armin smiles uncomfortably. “Well I know that he thinks she’s pretty, so maybe he finally had some luck…”

“There is no way that Mikasa would be stupid enough, ever, to give a horse face like that ‘some luck’,” Eren declares loudly.

“I’m going to check anyway,” Armin says, and disappears from the door. 

“Hey! You better not be serious!” Eren runs to the door and clutches the frame as he calls after his friend’s retreating back. “If she’s anywhere with Jean, it’s probably just to kick his ass!”

He isn’t sure if Armin is listening, so he scowls and dips back into her room to look for any sign that she might have been in it since last night. The place is pretty spotless, except for the doll draped over the edge of a stool in the corner. 

Curious, Eren draws closer and picks it up. Mikasa had been carrying around a doll in her image, all cloth and yarn and buttons for eyes with a little red scarf to match, for a couple of days now. Sasha had teased her for it but she shut up pretty quickly when Mikasa gave her the world’s coldest stare. 

Except that isn’t this doll. When he turns it over, he realizes it’s his own spitting image. Green buttons for eyes. Brown yarn hair that’s sewn exactly the way his falls, even a little jacket for the Survey Corps uniform and the straps and buckles all done in ribbon. It’s cute, he realizes with a blush, and strangely accurate. For a kid’s doll. Where did she get the materials for this? Or the time?

Eren smiles brightly. He runs out of the room. “Hey, Armin! Wait! Look what Mikasa made for me!”

**Author's Note:**

> A little clarification, if you need it:
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIJPpZrFmiQ


End file.
